My impressions on Ys VI.

[Galbalan]

So I just recently finished it on Normal, after having neglected it for a while due to a lot of other things, and I admit I spoiled myself for this game after going through Felghana several times (first on Hard, then Nightmare, now doing Inferno and nearly done with it).

To be honest, I was a bit...underwhelmed. While not the worst game ever, it feels to me like the weakest entry in the series (from the games I've played, those being the US-released games). A few points:

- Visually, the game is fine. The mix of polygon models and sprites does fine by this title, and after seeing and hearing the awfulness from the PS2 game (the pointlessly remade character models, the stupid CG, the voice acting) I'm glad I went PSP, loading times be damned.

- Musically...I find it odd that in a series known in its niche fanbase for its excellent music, few tracks stuck out in my mind. I absolutely love the boss theme (because who would ever think that mixing wailing on a guitar with vaguely Middle Eastern/Arabian undertones in the music would produce something so kick-ass?), the other music didn't have me humming along, aside from the final dungeon theme.

- Speaking of dungeons...man, I dunno what to think here. They're competently made for the most part, but...they really aren't memorable in terms of design, at least in my opinion. We have a mountainside of glorious browns where you climb and climb, a dark, can't-see-a-damn-thing-without-an-accessory-and-even-then-oh-God-the-navigation cave, and nondescript ancient ruins of blah blah blah. They weren't BAD dungeons per se, just overwhelmingly bland (and seriously man, f**k that cave).

- Story-wise, it was at least easy to follow and simple, and some of the late game revelations were interesting. No real issues here.

- Uneven difficulty...because when Demi-Galba, an incomplete Galbalan that serves as the first boss gives me more trouble than Galba-Roa who smashed a fleet of ships in a cutscene and turned out to be a total wimp, and is the third-to-last boss...oi.

So while I may be griping a lot, I generally enjoyed the overall game itself, and the elemental swords were interesting (although I felt the bracelets in Felghana were implemented far better). So I feel it's a slightly above average package in total, but...man, I probably should have completed it before marathoning Felghana so much, then I'd probably be less underwhelmed.

But yeah, the general impression I got from the game was "It's OK, but not up to series standards".

[Ascended Mermaid]

*high-five* Awesome, awesome post Galbalan. This is exactly how I feel about Ys VI. Of course, I also wasn't a big fan of all the back and forth, and side-quests. I liked the neat things such as the minigames in the PSP version, though!

[Galbalan]

Thanks! I should mention that one of the things I did absolutely love was the final boss theme. "Depth Napishtim" is right up there with "The Strongest Foe" in my book, even if the concept of a doomsday weather device as a boss doesn't come off as the most brilliant thought.

Falcom Employee 1: It's called Ark of Napishtim...um...how can we tie the title into the game?

Falcom Employee 2: I know! Make the Ark go Skynet and want to destroy all humans in the name of its creators due to some ill-explained malfunction!

Falcom Employee 1: Brilliant. Our paychecks just cash themselves at this point!

[vanhart]

sorry to be rude but i disagreeeeeeeee

yourself admitted this is a late play of the 3d-2d series and you're beating a dead horse pointing out this isn't the best.

If you reverse the point of view, i only played this one, and i loved so much
The cave was infamous/awesome, the mountain path a good training course
some nice subquest (there aren't too many and OK, this is flaw)
Still the score is great (with a few exception=)


I'm about to play Felghana and my expectations are for a better game overall.
But is not like you play Odin Sphere for the first time and come to " naaah is worse then Muramasa"

[Ascended Mermaid]

Actually, I thought Odin Sphere was better than Muramasa, but that's just me. In my case, I played VI first, and even then, it really didn't feel like it lived up to the series' standards.

// I really liked the theme for Galba-Roa and Ernst. I would say that this game really shines best in bosses and boss themes, but not much else.

[vanhart]

i think it's a fair and good first try in the 3D visual,
and the more the better, for me,
so i can't dislike just because there' are better episodes

Yes Odin Sphere was a very awesome game but you can read bad opinions spred trough the internet, and the main complain it's because the game is thoug
Muramasa is more gamer friendly and polished in a way.

But for me, every game has a dignity per se,
it's not like that kind of improvements you can find in a beat'em series (eer SFVI) that makes you play just the last installament (for competitive reasons of course) which is without no doubt the best of the series (still i prefer Zero 2 over zero 3)

one can prefere a game over another, of course

[Red Hairdo]

Galbalan, you should love Ys VI all the way! Your origins come to light in that game! The whole Galba family's in it!

Anyway, it was a good post, but as expected, if you play YsF before it, you might expect an YsF in it, which is not. Likewise, I, at first, wasn't that fond of YsF, because I played Ys VI before it, and I think the back of my mind was expecting another Ys VI. But YsF is, like Ys VI, a very good game itself, so naturally I enjoyed it a lot. (But I still prefer Ys VI!)

This reminds me of Taito's Ys IV and V for PS2: when put next to ANY other Ys game, they are HORRIBLE. But if you actually forget ANY other Ys game engine, its good sides will stand out more to you, and then you'll be able to enjoy them, as well. In particular with Ys V PS2, which is harder to be liked in my humble opinion.

[Red Hairdo]

Heh, funny how "origins" was changed to "Origin" in my post. I wasn't even referring to Ys ORIGIN_, and "origins" is an actual word. XD

[Raison D'etritus]

Likewise, I, at first, wasn't that fond of YsF, because I played Ys VI before it, and I think the back of my mind was expecting another Ys VI. But YsF is, like Ys VI, a very good game itself, so naturally I enjoyed it a lot. (But I still prefer Ys VI!)

Took the words right out of my post!

Glad to know I'm not alone on the subject (just in a minority).

I love OiF and have played it like 4 times, but overall I just don't think I liked it quite as much as AoN.
I will admit the end boss is much better. . . but he also pissed the living hell outta me, which robbed a good deal of fun from the experience.

[yotaka]

Said it before, will say it again: VI must be thanked for reigniting the flame of this series after a near decade of nothing but remakes and ports, no thanks to V tanking hard. Plus, it's got a bit of extra focus on the story and characters than typical Ys games which is nice. VI's engine led to the even better OiF and Origin too so let's think of it as a big step forward from V, even if later games did it better.

Oh, and also: Terra!

Aug 5, 2011 12:58:24 GMT -5 Red Hairdo said:

In particular with Ys V PS2, which is harder to be liked in my humble opinion.

Personally I think IV is the hardest to like because it has one great and one good game to compare to while V has, well, Ys V. With V, there really wasn't anywhere to go gameplay-wise but up and it lacked an awesome set of rearrangements so even though the music quality wasn't great it still stood up decently to the SNES chiptunes that were its only comparison. It's still got a lot of the flaws of IV but again, by comparison to the original V it's still decent enough. Of course, when they remove the entire Stoker plot from the story for no obvious reason I have to wonder what they were thinking messing with the one really good aspect of the original game... then I remember what they did to IV's story and characters and I realize that things could have been much worse.